Kip Cyprus: Rocket 88 & V8 Engine
Kip Cyprus introduces us to the 1950 Rocket 88 & Oldsmobile Performance V8 Engine
Oldsmobile introduces to the American market one of the 1st performance V8’s.
This is a 1950 Rocket 88 motor, Oldmobile’s performance engine that would be in a 1950 Oldsmobile.
Kip Cyprus tells us what could be found under the hood: “it is the same motor that has been modified with the in-take. It has the custom 4 strong bird carborators. Its running an original – of the era 4 in-take carborator manifold. Its actually fuel injection with 4 individual fuel injectors inside those strong birds that run into a computer – its mapped but we’re running the original Rocket ’88 V 8 motor that the car was produced with.”
“This car would be considered a lead sled or custom. It has been shaved up in diffferent areas and body worked. The fenders and the molding have been tightened up giving it a real smooth look.
It runs on a set of “bags” so it can be at different heights – a very comfortable ride.
Kip Cyprus continues: “How we have rebuilt this is very interesting. The original Rocket ’88 motor came out of a 1950 Coupe – same platform but a little different body. We were in the middle of rebuilding the Oldsmobile when another customer pulled up to the shop in a complelely cracked original Rocket ’88 Coupe.
We were thinking , when you find an original Rocket ’88 motor with all of its parts, air cleaners, carborators even the gear, transmission on it, and the manifolds – we were thinking we can’t let this go so we made a deal for it! It is important perserve items like this and not see them go to the junkyard. Its a peice of art.
This car was worked all the way down to metal and it was complelty fabbed up. From the engine – the frames and the bodies in the metal shop. One all the parts were all fabbed up we sent the parts back out for finishing – body off to be painted and engine off to the engine builder and th eplating goes out to the platers.
The inside is not the factory finish because it is a custom. It has some cool options in it like a compass on the hood that would have been factory at the time and we placed it. The steering wheel has the awesome Oldsmobile emblem in the center of it. Features like electric windows! This car has a modern transmission in it so it can travel down the road and keep up with normal traffic and it actually performs womderfuly.”
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